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Sadly, this update now lists Katie Campbell with the not able to play asterisk (*). Just like last year, we are currently down 4 players from our full roster. Except, last year it took the whole year to accumulate 4 unplayable personnel. This year, we still have a lot of basketball to play.

Based on the numerous highlights I have seen of Esther Little, I think that Esther Little is much more likely to play the #2 or more likely the #3 than the #4 where you currently have her located. She has a game that is much more akin to JT or LF than the Wirths or MK.

Thanks for the input, ZD. I always appreciate input from you, SkipZag, and others.

I did not have the chance a watch any of the videos of Esther Little before I posted the roster update. The basis for listing her as a Forward (correctly or incorrectly) is from my online search for information. She is listed as a "Power Forward" on eurobasket.com, as a "Forward" on fiba.basketball, and as "an athletic Forward" in the Spokesman Review article.

The fiba.basketball link below contains the stats from her 8-game FIBA U18 Women's European Championship Division B tournament last summer, where she averaged 12.1 rebounds per game. It also contains 6 pictures in game action. Each still-shot action picture on its own could be catergorized anywhere from Point Guard to Power Forward and everything in between.

With all that said, after watching a few videos, I can see why you are projecting her to be a Wing on the Zags team in 2021-2022. She handles the ball and brings it up court extremely well with spot-on passing abilities.

This brings up the general topic of how the Roster in this thread is structured. When I started posting it back in 2016, I was just parroting back the player positions as stated in the Roster published in gozags.com (along with a little more information, grouped, and color-coded to visually see a projection of what the future teams will look like). Gozags.com categorizes the players into only three positions: G, F, or C. About a year or so ago, I started to break out the primary Point Guards separate from all the other Guards.

My question to you and others on this Forum is,... would it be beneficial to break away from the three gozags.com categories of just G, F, and C and drill down in detail to the seven categories of positions used in the game today (Point Guard, Combo, Shooting Guard, Wing, Small Forward, Power Forward, and Center)? One thing is for certain. We will never obtain 100% consensus on the proper categorization of all the players on the team, even with the stipulation that it represents the predominate position of each player.

Thoughts, ZD and others?

.

Last edited by Zagineer; 03-31-2020 at 02:08 PM.
Reason: fixed a typo.

I think what you have done in the past works very well for your roster spots. By far and large, most of the players play where you have initially placed them and combining the #2 and #3 spots makes a lot of sense since players frequently migrate between these two spots during the game. I would not change anything in the way you are listing things. Thanks.

My issue with Esther is that in the video links that I provided list her as a combo guard/forward not just a forward:

She is listed on the opening sequence as a guard/forward which I think accurately describes the position she actually plays today. In several of the interviews with Esther, she says that her head coach has taught her how to play point guard and how to shoot 3's. In all difference to our current list of forwards, JW & LW will occasionally shoot a 3 but nobody else will. Going back several years, only JB had a significant outside game but JB could not handle (dribbling, passing, etc.) the ball anything like Esther. Both the Wirths and JB are considerably taller than Esther and Esther's height when combined with her smaller stature would indicate her playing more on the outside than banging around on the inside at Gonzaga. Thus, I think placing her at the #2/#3 spot would be more accurate where she is going to play with Gonzaga, but if you want to leave her at a forward (#4) that is fine with me as well.

As for positioning the players... sometimes hard to do with the way the game goes today. I see the coaching staff playing the 1 and 2s with PGs... and with that, you could move K-14 to a PG. Then you have the 3s... wings. And last you could combide the F and C and call them P being we run a high low post. Hence you would have G, W, P.

That being said (and I have way to much time on my hands) what you have put together is great.

Abby O’Connor Leaves Loyola University Chicago for Gonzaga

"The Loyola women’s basketball team has some big shoes to fill after junior forward Abby O’Connor announced on Twitter she’s transferring to Gonzaga University at the end of the semester. O’Connor was one of Loyola head coach Kate Achter’s first recruits in 2017 and made an instant impact on the court. In her three years at Loyola, O’Connor averaged 12.5 points per game and seven rebounds per game. This year, she led the Ramblers with 12.3 points and 8 rebounds per game.

She was named All-Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) honorable mention this season after receiving All-MVC first team and MVC All-Defense Team honors a year ago."

Perhaps someone can fill in some of the blanks here: Is Abby going to play ball at GU? Can she play this Fall? Do we have the roster room? Do we have the extra scholarship? Does she have the talent to help us?

These are interesting times.

SLOZag "Kids come here to better their own lives, not ours. If you take a player’s failures as a personal affront…. check yourself." - Chick-Stratino'sUrDaddy

Abby has played 3 years so she has a single year of eligibility available. Since she is a junior, unless she graduates as a junior she would have to sit out next year for transfer protocol, unless the NCAA relaxes those rules.

I don't see an available scholarship for this upcoming year (2020/2021) and we have a really (really) full roster and playing time would be limited. However, assuming she has to sit the 2020/2021 year, we are losing 6 graduates at the end of 2021, and we have only 2 verbal commits for 2021/2022 so we would have a scholarship available for the 2021/2022 season.

sounds like a good get but do transfers who sit count towards your total number of scholarships?....I know we lose a lot next year ....sadly....I like that she has impressive defensive skills....I'd like to get a big post somewhere....

The NCAA requires universities and colleges at the D1 level to offer only ‘full’ scholarships in men’s and women’s basketball. Men’s programs are restricted to 13 scholarships while women’s program rosters have 15 full scholarship players. An interesting point for you to know about full scholarship awards at the NJCAA (Junior College) D1 level is the total offering includes transportation costs one time per year to and from the college by direct route. NCAA D2 and NAIA may offer full or partial scholarship monies to college basketball recruits. While NCAA Division 3 schools are not permitted to offer athletic scholarships you can also benefit from earning academic and merit scholarships available to all students registering to attend those institutions.

Here is an update to the 2020-2021 Roster and forecast out to 2023-2024. Also,.....

Welcome Abby O'Connor from Loyola University of Chicago!!

After the input and dialogue from the past few posts, the table below grouped by Primary Position has been restructured to better identify the following Primary Positions:

Point Guard
Shooting Guard
Wing
Forward
Center

To me, this structure better presents and communicates the intent of the table. That is, to identify what positions we need to recruit in preparation for the future years. Let me know of any corrections needed.

It is possible that Abby may not be required to sit out a year due to transfer. This post is from the MBB board:

"Originally Posted by zagsfanforlife[:]
Prominent cbb writers are saying that the rule allowing transfers to transfer without sitting out a year has a better chance to pass than not.
[From caldwellzag:] Hearing the same thing."

That would solve half of the impediments to Abby playing for us next fall. The other half is the question whether there will be a roster spot open for her then.

SLOZag "Kids come here to better their own lives, not ours. If you take a player’s failures as a personal affront…. check yourself." - Chick-Stratino'sUrDaddy

I think that because of the catastrophic events going on , the NCAA should be very liberal in their approach to transfers and do so immediately...some of these kids lost out on post season tournaments, and nothing could really be done about that but at least going forward, opens it up more for the players......I'd like to see some regulations so we don't have a free for all with intense recruiting of transfers to the money schools....

and along with that, maybe allow an extra schollie this year?...

I don't know if Gillian is on scholarship....she should be....she is very important to this team and when she plays she does well....but we'll see how this shakes out....

In the updated Roster Charts below, I have positioned Bree as a Forward. After visiting 6 web sites, there was not a general consensus as to whether she is a Wing, or a Forward. Probably because she can play both.... and probably will at GU. By listing her as a Forward, the future team is balanced with 4 Wings and 4 Forwards. We'll have to wait about 2 years from now to find out where her minutes were spent in her Freshman year.

Thanks for the inputs. I, also, have wondered about the proper placement of EH and KG. I did considerable searching on Google for any related information and have come up with nothing. So, my decision was to stay with the documented/confirmed information. But,.... with inputs from the 4 of you, I have moved EH and KG to the NCAA Senior Class of 2023-2024 and added notes that we are awaiting confirming documentation from the player, or an official GU source.